Why The Skin Cancer Foundation is WRONG
Why The Skin Cancer Foundation is WRONG
Destroying an untenable position on sunlight and tanning
The Skin Cancer Foundation has a shocking paradigm in regards to sunlight exposure and tanning. It’s likely the worst health information I have ever read due to the level of ignorance involved.
I’ll take you through each point they make and break it down to not only prove why it’s grossly incorrect, but that it’s also recklessly dangerous because it worsens people’s health.
Firstly, read this disclaimer:
You can definitely burn if you don’t give the sun the respect it deserves.
Failing to build your solar callous properly and constantly burning as a result will directly raise your risk of skin cancer.
But, that’s not because sunlight inherently causes melanoma or other types of skin cancer. It’s because you have atrophic skin due to blue light toxicity, sunglasses, sunscreen, contact lenses, so forth.
In other words:
Your skin hasn’t developed the adaptation to higher UV index conditions.
The nuance of this subject make all the difference in the quality of your results.
Tanning & Skin Damage
Below is a screenshot of where The Skin Cancer Foundation begins its word vomit.
Firstly, tanning is not just skin damage. It’s the process of hormesis at work. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s the idea that the organism adapts to low-grade stressors and becomes stronger over time.
Sunlight during high UV index conditions is a low-grade stressor on the body.
Your duty is to educate yourself and create an adequate signal for adaptation.
Do we demonize exercise even though it decimates our tissues, muscles, and ligaments after a session?
No, we don’t.
If you were to get a blood test right after a training session, your metabolic health would look like disaster. The same applies to cold exposure, sauna use, elevation training, etc.
We must understand that the organism needs to adapt for better health. You and I need a challenge to strengthen our well-being, but we shouldn’t be reckless about it.
This “sunlight bad” agenda is a crock of shit and ignorance is not a cop out.
“There’s No Such Thing As A Safe Tan”
Mother Nature never makes a mistake.
Most species on this planet have an abundance of melanin.
Every mammal has adequate melanin stores in the form of either eumelanin (responsible for black and browns) or pheomelanin (reds, oranges, and yellows). Human beings have the highest concentration of neuromelanin within the brain.
What’s responsible for a tan?
An increased production of MELANIN.
It’s clear that this article from The Skin Cancer Foundation is a propaganda piece, but what’s really scary is the fact that they genuinely believe this is the truth.
UV Rays & Skin Damage
There is a half-truth here.
Notice how they try to fear monger you into avoiding the sun with phrases like:
‘genetic damage’
‘skin tries to prevent further injury’
‘from the very first tan’
Melanin’s function goes well beyond skin color pigmentation.
I wrote an entire thread on melanin. It regulates the production of dopamine, acts like a free radical sink, has electrical conductive potential, and has long been known to be a natural sunscreen that disperses excess UV radiation into heat.
Melanin allows for the crucial absorption of light and plays a major role in countless biological processes. You need MORE of it, not less.
Skin Cancer
“Most nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSC) and a large percentage of melanomas are ASSOCIATED with exposure to UV rays from natural sunlight and/or indoor tanning.
An association is meaningless because it doesn’t give us any insight on a causal relationship of said thing to said disease model.
What about the other aspects of these people’s lifestyle?
Blue light toxicity?
Circadian disruption?
Vegetable oil consumption?
Conventional sunscreen use?
Chronic smoking?
The problem here is they’ve taken observational studies and conflated them with truth. It’s incredible how they’re able to make this mistake because anybody worth their weight in gold within this space knows to never make that mistake.
Tanning & Skin Type
Every skin type can develop more melanin.
Lighter skinned people are more susceptible to burning because they haven’t developed that melanin store yet which is why they need to be more intentional about the process.
The idea that UV light inherently causes any form of skin cancer is absurd.
Furthermore, within your body, there are special helpers called photolyases.
They use a specific type of light, like the light from the sun, to fix any potential DNA damage and make them right again. These photolyases mainly fix problems called pyrimidine dimers, which are like errors in the DNA puzzle. They’re like DNA detectives who use sunlight to fix mistakes.
Combine this with the protective effect of melanin and you begin to question the conventional narrative about sunlight being inherently harmful.
VITAMIN D3 & TANNING
This is the worst one I’ve seen yet.
They’re actively trying to dissuade you from getting Vitamin D from sunlight.
Instead, they recommend:
Food (Good luck with that considering the incredibly low amounts available in a handful of foods)
Supplements (Don’t take exogenously what your body can produce endogenously) Sunlight packages both UV-A and UV-B rays together at various intensities depending on the time of day
To say that “tanning delivers almost no vitamin D benefit while increasing the risk of skin cancer” is idiotic and incorrect.
We continue.
“Tanning does not protect against sunburn, it simply exposes you to more harmful UV rays.”
There’s no understanding of melanin or biology involved here, yet they’re spreading information which causes atrophic skin such as:
“Wear protective clothing.”
“Wear a wide-brimmed hat.”
“UV blocking sunglasses.”
“Apply sunscreen daily.”
Read this article here for more information on the protective effect of melanin.
Tanning & SAD
”Tanning doesn’t help treat Seasonal Affective Disorder.”
They even go to the extent of saying a tan doesn’t help with Seasonal Affective Disorder which is incredibly reckless to publish.
SAD has been shown to exclusively be a problem of:
A) Little to no sunlight
B) Little to no Vitamin D3
Again, it’s just another logical inconsistency with no logic to back it up.
Terrible Recommendations
Lastly, I’ll leave you with their closing remarks and advice (it’s obviously horrible) pictured above. We live in the Twilight Zone where everything is ass backwards today.
Oh, and the best part?
Not a single study was provided in this article.
Building your solar callous takes time, patience, and intention.
I’ve received many messages from people who have light skin and blue eyes. They say the same thing:
“I can sunbathe now.”
“I always used to burn myself.”
“I feel incredible.”
Don’t expect this outcome without work though.
Light environment is everything, but the other health fundamentals are crucial as well. I’ll help you fix everything from sleep to bloodwork. Maximum results in weeks based on the 80/20 principle. Click here if you want in to work with me for 8 weeks.
Much love
Zaid